Category: Daily Posts

Brazil Facts and Figures Claimed by Pedro Alvarez Cabral for the Portuguese, following his arrival in 1500, Brazil is the largest country in South America, the fifth largest in the world and the fifth most populous. It has a total land area of 3.29 million square miles with forest accounting…

We spent the day in Salvador, Brazil today. We had read all the stories about how dangerous Salvador is etc., but we decided not to do an organised tour and instead did our own thing and we are so glad we did. Before you even get outside the cruise terminal…

Fortaleza is a coastal city in North East Brazil and is its fourth largest city with a population of 2.5 million people. It has a tropical climate with high humidity in the rainy season. The temperature at midday today was 35 degrees 🥵 but this was significantly relieved by the…

As we have been at sea for 3 days, we decided to combine the last 2 days into one post. Since we left Barbados, the Queen Victoria has been battling against the North Equatorial Current which has been pushing against us, as well as relatively high winds. This has meant…

Quiet sea day today. We had a talk by explorer Lucy Shepherd (off the telly) in the morning. Lucy filmed ‘Secret Amazon – Into the Wild’ for Channel 4 which covered her trek across the Kanuku Mountains in Guyana (a previously fairly unexplored region). Please see www.lucyshepherd.com for further info….

Barbados is a tropical island some 21 miles x 13 miles in area. It is the most easterly of the Caribbean islands with a population of approximately 280,000. As everyone knows, Barbados is famed for its beautiful beaches, rum and cricket. The interior rises to a hilly plateau and is…

Bridge’s birthday – Hooray! 🥳 After breakfast, Bridge went for her birthday massage while Paul read his book on deck and managed to get his legs thoroughly sunburnt. 🙄 After lunch we sat around the Lido pool and participated in the daily pop quiz. This evening was the Burns Night…

Although a sea day, we had quite a busy day today. This morning we had an audience with former Formula 1 racing driver David Coulthard who talked to a packed theatre for over an hour. I was going to write an account of the interview but I’m guessing most people…

Today we arrived on our first Caribbean island, Grand Turk in the West Indies – Hurrah!!! 🥳 The Turks and Caicos Islands are a British overseas territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and the smaller Turk Islands. The islands lie south east of the Bahamas and directly north of…